The comeback was just as impressive. Ovechkin gets all the credit, but yanking Holtby and Grubauer settling things down, the boarding major was huge, and Johansson and Backstrohm played great. Excellent game, hate seeing so many goals against but love seeing a team fight like that for a win.

As a Caps fan, I was always the first to complain about how poor a captain and leader Ovechkin was. However since the 2011-12 season he has matured so much and become a completely different person. He and Backstrom singlehandedly led won the game for the Caps tonight. In addition to last season, for the first time in his career Ovechkin looks like a bonafide leader and a consistent player. He also just happens to be the most dangerous offensive threat in the world.

Also can’t help but notice underrated Backstrom is. Five points tonight (1G, 4A, more points than Ovi) and that doesn’t even get a mention on this article. Just goes to show how much he flies under the radar playing next to the GR8. There isn’t a more calm and composed player with the puck in the NHL than Backstrom. He’s been absolutely fantastic, most underrated player in the NHL in my mind.

First of all, plus-minus is a skewed stat that is an inaccurate assessment of a players defensive ability. For example, Brooks Laich is a minus-9 but is a fantastic defensive player. Ovechkin’s plus minus is more indicative of the poor Capitals defense and goaltending than anything else. I judge by your username that you’re a Penguins fan, and Kris Letang is a -5, but still a great player.

Second of all, as I’ve said many times on this website, nobody cares if Ovechkin doesn’t play Selke-caliber defense when he’s scoring at almost a goal-per-game pace. Caps fans are plenty content with his play, but other hockey fans don’t seem to be. I’ve also noticed him more involved in the defensive zone recently, not just floating around like he used to. He’s becoming a great all around player. Don’t be so butthurt

Hockey fans who take +/- seriously are like baseball fans who take pitcher wins seriously or football fans who judge quarterbacks solely by number of Super Bowls won. They should be smiled at, patted on the head, and handed lollipops so they have something to occupy themselves while they wait for Sesame Street to come on the air.

joey4id - Dec 10, 2013 at 11:09 PM

Lowenni, you rant about not caring about his defensive game and call out others who expect a leader to play two way hockey. Then, you admit he is a floater, but is showing signs of improvement. So, all those who called him a floater were correct. Any idea why he felt he had to change? And why did you feel you had to tell us about his defensive game if that part of his game didn’t matter to you? Sounds like you’re admitting what most have been saying about his lack of all around play.

I never said defense wasn’t important. My point is that in Ovechkin’s case, he’s still an extremely impactful player even with his defensive inefficiencies. I never called out people who expect a leader to play two-way hockey, because that’s what I expect of a great player as well. Ovechkin is a rare case because he is a great leader, yet not a great two-way hockey player. My argument was simply that yes, despite not being a great two-way hockey player, he still IS a great player. I never said it was an unfair statement to call him a floater, it’s true. I don’t see any problem with me pointing out that he’s made defensive improvements however. Not really sure what you’re picking at, sir.

c9castine - Dec 11, 2013 at 12:10 AM

plus/minus is not a skewed stat. its pretty cut and dry and counted evenly for all players.

Ovie is not a leader and scoring 4 goal for a comeback doesn’t make you one. The penguins would never name Malkin their captain even without Sid. For much different reasons than Ovechkin, but just because Malkin scores tons of points and can take over games and win them by himself doesn’t make him a proper captain. Ovie and malkin are “lead by example” types…teammates get pumped up watching them make the plays they do.

guys like crosby and toews and chara, they are mental and physical and behavioral leaders. they lead teams to stanley cups.

First of you penguins fans are idiots that constantly brings stats up that are completely jaded on a teams performance not the players. You are the ones that try convincing me that fleurys GAA shows he’s better then mason when masons S% was much better. You constantly google stats that mean nothing. If you don’t think ovi’s night was impressive as impressive gets then you are insanely blinded by your black and hold glasses ya got on. Kyzslew77 is spot on with his statement about all other dumb stats that are miss conceiving in sports. Joey you show again how bad you are at reading and constantly bring nothing to the argument but stupidity and perplexing opinions. If you’ve noticed no one ever agrees with you and all’s you do is argue dumb pointless things

C9castine you show again your ignorance. Plus/minus is a completely skewed stat just like GA. It’s not cut in dry at all. It doesn’t give you a minus only when it’s your fault the puck went In, everyone on the ice gets one so unless you can figure out which minus was there fault then the stat is useless. What about Ryan Callahan whose -6 or taveres whose constantly a minus player with a -8, does that make them bad players? It’s because they’re on bad teams currently. You have no clue what your talkin about. It’s far from cut in dry, your just a dumb pens fan who uses stats as a reference point to show pens players are the best. And Crosby is not in the same realm of captains as toews and chara. Crosby leads by play just like ovi does.

babykaby - Dec 11, 2013 at 7:31 AM

ppg do not count in +/- stats. That’s why the stat is skewed. Learn the game dummy.

Ovi’s a wing. Period. His job in most systems is to get up ice quick and attack in most systems, unless they are dropping the right wing back on defense in that zone (which would be silly in their case).

Two way play is great. But +/- is skewed for wingers (I think there’s some merit to it for D-men and to some extent Centers).

Maybe Ovi’s +/- is more a result of offensive minded Greene, who is also a -10. Maybe not, who knows. But I know Greene plays alot like Letang and I’ve been calling for Letang’s head most of the season for poor defensive play.

people who say +/- is a wothless stat are people who are trying to defend a guy whose +/- is bad. if it was worthless, they wouldnt keep track of it or use it as a qualifier for defensive awards every year. if you have a ton of 5 on 5 goals under your belt and you are a minus player it says you dont play defense very well, plain and simple, there’s nothing skewed about it. you give up as many as you put in and you wont win as many games as you should, thats the most important thing, wins. it matters to defensemen especially when they can maintain a + status when going up against the best every night too. i’m not picking on ovechkin, he’s a career + player by a mile and he plays on a team that gives up a lot of goals these days but i will point to backstrom and johansen at -4 and -5 respectively and wonder a little bit. tell a guy like bergeron or suter that +/- doesnt matter and see what they say…they make a difference defensively every night and can often help win games even when they arent scoring goals. keeping the puck out can be even more important if you run into a hot goalie or are playing a team like boston who you’re lucky to only score one or two against on a nightly basis anyway.

Plus-minus is horrible for evaluating a single player. You can get, at best, a rough estimation of how well certain lines and certain defensive pairings performed, with a large enough sample size (like a full season or more). And even then, it’s still horrid. Possession on/off numbers are a far better stat for single player evaluation, and even those are best used for evaluating whole lines or pairings.

thats why i brought in backstrom and mojo’s numbers…they’re not half as bad as ovechkin’s +/-. granted i’m sure ov double-shifts more than those two probably taking one or two shifts from 4th liners every night or staying out longer on line changes in certain situations but if thats where the difference in toi comes in then it pretty much isolates ovechkin and explains the difference. 8 plays about 90 secs more than 19 and about 3 mins more than mojo on average. if those extra couple minutes are where he’s suffering then you gotta point the finger at him. throughout the game ovechkin plays with all different defensive pairings so while carlson and alzner are good and green is terrible, they kinda even each other out big picture.

Can’t deny what ovi is doing this year, its unreal. But, we have seen this song and dance before… People are quick to point out Canadians having career years only because of the olympics, you think ovi isn’t motivated by that? If this keeps up then wow, just wow because his numbers will be absurd. I hope he does, hockey is better for it. I’m just not ready to crown him best in the world because he’s proven he goes through fits and starts while Crosby and stamkos are usually very consistent. Its a shame stammer got hurt. How amazing would it be to see all three of those guys at the tops of their games for once. Maybe next year…

As great as Ovi and Backstrom played, I think we’re all forgetting about our other star, Mike Green. Mike, other than the 18 penalty minutes in the first period which directly lead to 3 goals, you played just as well. Some of the finest sword fighting I’ve ever seen on ice. Great work boys.

Tipping your cap to the player who nearly single handily killed the Caps in the first period, who saw only 17:57 Minutes of ice time as a result, clearly losing shifts to his inept play because he has a saucer pass to Ovechkin for a PP goal? Give me a break, did you even watch the game?

Wow so apparently scoring 4 goals tonight and leading the league in goals makes you best the player all of a sudden? That is funny. Ovie is nothing more than a goal scorer…aside from that he does absolutely nothing else except hit players. Ovie doesn’t make the whole Capitals team better around him. Crosby is a more complete player than Ovie is. Crosby delivers in the Playoffs/Olympics while Ovie doesn’t. Ovechkin having 3 Hart Trophies is a joke considering that he was invisible for half a season during 2 of those seasons.

Leave it to a Pens fan to bring up Crosby. Not a single person on here (including the many Caps fans) said anything about Ovi being better than Crosby. In fact, as a Caps fan myself, I think Crosby is the best player of our generation. But yes…I think leading the league in goals makes you one of the best players. After all, last time I checked at least…doesn’t the team with the most goals at the end of the game win? I’m not sure but I’ll check up on that one. And this isn’t all of a sudden. I think Ovi’s 400 goals and 700+ points at the young age of 28 show that this is a career-long thing, not an “all of a sudden” thing. Also, Ovi is a PPG game player on both national teams and in the playoffs. You’re the type of fan that’s the reason so many people hate Pens fans, because you can’t admit any player is good beyond your own stars in Crosby and Malkin. I think every hockey fan has accepted and appreciates Crosby to be the greatest player in the world, but anytime someone else is considered even above-average, people like you come in trying to defend Crosby. Ovechkin is one of the greatest goal-scorers in the history of hockey. Yeah, he’s pretty good.

No, look up at my comment earlier and apparently most people here agree with me. People here on this site all collectively hate on OV when he doesn’t score for more than two games, but when he plays like he knows how to they all love him.

Couldn’t have put it better myself, devilsarethebest. That statement pretty much sums up Ovi’s career.

hammerhead5573 - Dec 10, 2013 at 11:28 PM

Dude pipe down a bit. That was one guys opinion. The best players in the NHL are more than just goal snorers, or just great defenseman. There are many factors that make a player the best. If you re-call “your better overall player” tried picking a fight with the tallest dude in hockey all because the penguins were getting their tails kicked out of the playoffs last year. One could say that is not a team leader too. If he is the overall better player you don’t turn into a thug just because you are getting your butt kick.

stakex - Dec 10, 2013 at 11:58 PM

Look pitpenguinsrulez, obviously you’re going to think Crosby is a better player. You are a Pens fan after all. However, trying to compare Ovechkin and Crosby is almost impossible. They are both world class players for completely different reasons, they both play different positions, and they both play in radically different situations.

For example, Crosby might be a better two way player….. but that’s because he’s a center. As a winger, Ovechkin doesn’t have nearly as much defensive responsibility in his own zone as Crosby does. Ovechkin also doesn’t rack up a lot of assists because he doesn’t have the supporting cast that Crosby does. You could remove Crosby from the lineup right now, and the Pens are still a cup contender capable of winning without him. Remove Ovechkin from the lineup though, and the Caps would collapse. Hell, even with Ovechkin on fire and on pace to score over 70 goals the Caps are just clinging to a playoff spot in the leagues worst division… that says a lot more about the team around him than his play.

That’s why Ovechkin has won the Heart three times. He doesn’t have a world class team around him. He has a very mediocre team around him that he has carried to the playoffs year after year. They haven’t gotten very far beyond that, not because of Ovechkin (who’s payoff stats aren’t much different than Crosby’s btw), but because the Caps lack the depth/defense/goaltending required to win in the playoffs. Again, you could remove Crosby from the Pens and they are still a great team…. and as such its hard to argue he is the most valuable player in the league since his value to the Pens isn’t as high as Ovechkin’s is to the Caps.

At the end of the day though, unless we could see Crosby and Ovechkin trade places for a year its impossible to see who’s better. The only thing I will say is that hockey is a game about scoring goals…. and the one thing almost no one will debate is that no one in the world is better than Ovechkin at scoring goals.

Stakex summed it up perfect so pens fans take note of that. Crosby is never anywhere near in the running for a selke so don’t act like he’s more complete then ovechkin. Like he said there’s a reason for him havin more harts then Crosby cause he means more to the team the most valuable player hence “MVP”. Ovi is a way better goal scorer then Crosby has been, just look up the stats cause I know you pens fans are big on only judging stats. And he was invisible for one of them 3 harts not two but he turned it up when he needed to to get them in the playoffs. Give credit where credit is due for once in your life and stop blowing Crosby 24/7. We’ve all been watching hockey for years unlike you, we know he’s one of the best

i agree he doesnt have a world class team around him anymore. they won the presidents trophy a couple years back, he had/has a 100 pt center passing him the puck, holtby’s been lights out in the playoffs the last 2 seasons and theodore played good enough for a while. mike green at one point was considered the best offensive defenseman and semin was a line 2 matchup nightmare. they consistently have a top 5 pp unit…you could make an argument that he’s had his opportunities and they had a world class team for several years…i personally think the window has closed for them now and mcphee squandered away their chances just looking at their current roster. i almost feel bad for ovechkin in that sense and caps fans too because unless something happens with mcphee, i feel like ovechkin’s prime will be for not and his name will be just worth a place in the hall of fame and not on the cup….which would be a shame.

babykaby - Dec 11, 2013 at 7:28 AM

Another idiot heard from. When was the last time Crosby scored 4 goals in one game? Yeah, I thought so.

joey4id - Dec 10, 2013 at 11:20 PM

Again people. Until he, as Captain of the Capitals can help his team get to the SCF, he won’t be anything but a great scoring machine in the regular season. And once he leads his team to the SCF he cannot choke. If you have trouble accepting this fact then you are bias. He blew it by not registering any points in the last five game of the series vs the Rangers last year. He has to get over that hump, and until he does he is nothing more than a great regular season player.

He’s only 28. He’s got time. Are you saying Jarome Iginla and Daniel Alfreddsson are bad players because they haven’t won the Cup yet? The Capitals’ lack of a Stanley Cup is more due to the team Ovechkin has had supporting him than it is him alone. You’re partially right, he still has to prove himself in the postseason, and he’s in the prime of his career. But he’s young. His struggles in last years series versus the Rangers are under-analyzed, Lundqvist absolutely shut him down. There aren’t many players in the NHL more hungry for the Cup than Ovi, even if they’re window is closing, and you can see that in the way he’s been playing recently. Any hockey fan should appreciate the fact that not many hockey players in the world have more heart than the GR8.

joey4id - Dec 11, 2013 at 8:48 AM

No doubt Ovi has a lot of heart and tremendous talent. He’s a scoring machine out there. Amazing! If every player would hit like him we would see a lot less concussions. BTW, I never said he was a bad player. He’s not. His hockey IQ (which includes every aspect of the game) is not among the highest of players the superstar category. I would pay to see him play nonetheless. Admittedly I would take Towes over Ovi. No doubt you need a talented team to win the cup which includes a very strong leader, and a very strong leader needs a talented team. Both go hand in hand. I seriously doubt Ovi’s ability to be a strong leader. To me this is made evident by many of the internal issues made public this year where the players and Oates are not on the same page. As the man wearing the C it is your dressing room. You own that along with other responsibilities. The window of opportunity to build a SC contender around Ovi is closing fast because that’s not done in one or 2 seasons. I believe the teams they had under Boudreau was the best they build around Ovi and it failed. Can they do it again?

joey4id - Dec 11, 2013 at 9:18 AM

Lets be honest here. No one is asking Ovi to play Selke-caliber defense. How about just playing defense when he doesn’t have the puck. Did he not pout when he was asked to move from right to left wing? Another indication to me he’s not a true leader. A leader would have said,”Coach if you think that’s best for the team then I’ll do my best to adjust.” But not Ovi.

babykaby - Dec 11, 2013 at 7:23 AM

His broken foot probably had something to do with that Rangers series. Besides, one player, captain or not, cannot win a whole series without some help. Hockey is a team sport, one guy alone cannot win a game much less a series.

Hahahaha, no other argument is necessary. Pretty sure Schultz is still buried somewhere in the AHL

blomfeld - Dec 10, 2013 at 11:46 PM

COULD OVECHKIN BE READING PHT ?

Despite the fact that I often ‘call out’ Ovechkin for his narcissistic ways here at PHT, I’m nonetheless obliged to ‘tip my ‘hat’ to him this evening. By all accounts, it sounds like Ovi has finally subscribed to the notion of ‘esprit de corps’ tonight in the Capital’s victory over the Bolts. And ‘good on him’ for that I say, as many of my all-time favorite hockey players are Russian. So hopefully Ovechkin has now ‘seen the light’ and he’ll chose to captain his team in going forward in the spirit of ‘selflessness and sacrifice’ for the group cause … God willing.

Merry Christmas to all you Washington Capitals fans out there !

babykaby - Dec 11, 2013 at 7:17 AM

Dumbfeld blomfeld, you maintain your idiot status. Do you honestly believe any of us do not recognize your attempt to disguise your insult to Ovechkin? “Selflessness and sacrifice,” are you kidding me. To imply Ovechkin is a selfish player is beyond stupid. His job is to score goals. That is what he was hired to do. To imply he is selfish because he does what he was hired to do makes absolutely no sense. For him not to make an attempt to score when given the opportunity would be not only ridiculous, but selfish. You don’t think he makes sacrifices for his team? As I recall, he was on the ice with a broken foot during the playoffs trying to help his team. How you can imply Ovechkin is selfish and doesn’t sacrifice for his team is beyond me when all I see is a player that consistently takes his team on his back. That, Dumbfeld, is the true measure of a leader. If you would stop making your little girl videos and actually try to understand the game of hockey, maybe, just maybe you might finally get it.

cspsrbums - Dec 10, 2013 at 11:54 PM

As a Caps fan that was a great game.
As for you imseantaylor:
RU crazy Green ayes a good game after his first period debocal He was horrendous 18 min in penalties in the 1st 9;50 of the game reasonable for 2 goals and on the ice late getting back for the 3rd goal. He started skating like a mad man in the 3rd period an chasing The dump ins as a defender into our Offensive zone ,he was out of control he then fell and face planted into the boards with no help
The 5th goal he chased a dump in again the lighting moved the puck up ice and scored, guess where Green was still trying to get back out of there zone. Before the shootout they showed a shot of Green on the bench sitting next to Holtby, Holtby wouldn’t even look in his direction kept his head turn and looked into space, Green needs to I don’t know what game you were watching but he had been horrible

cspsrbums - Dec 10, 2013 at 11:58 PM

@lowenni
Laich a good defender? Maybe at onetime the Dude doesn’t belong playing anymore always hurt, to slow, and is one of the problems for the Caps second line being the worst in the NHL along with Brouwer both should be moved

cspsrbums - Dec 11, 2013 at 12:12 AM

@stakex
Very well said, Mind if I use this to explain to others who don’t understand the Game

r8rbhawk - Dec 11, 2013 at 12:45 AM

Too bad Ovi didn’t channel his inner Joe Thornton when he scored his fourth goal of the night…

Since when is +/- a “nerd” stat? It’s horrible. If you want real nerd stats, look at Corsi, Fenwick, PDO, etc. And these “advanced” stats are very, very basic compared to baseball and basketball advanced stats.